The other day I received an old German speller that I’d purchased on ebay that was published in 1832. 
The front cover of the book was quite unattractive, but the back had this beautiful rooster artwork. I scanned it, cleaned it up in Photoshop, removing the lettering, and flopped the image to appear as a book front, leaving a nice area at the bottom to add your own text for digital collage work or any other craft idea.
The inside cover’s layout was full of beautiful woodcut animal illustrations.
With some of the animals, I designed free printable book plates. Click on the image just below to access the FREE PDF file and print to full sheet label stock (to create adhesive labels) or to plain paper to use with other adhesives, such as paper glue, spray adhesive, etc. 
Add a name to the white box areas digitally on each before printing or leave blank for hand personalizing. Print several copies of the set and cut out individual bookplates along the faint cut-lines.
Cut out one of the animal squares at the bottom of the sheet to seal off the wrapped band in the back.
These are a quick and easy gift to keep on hand or print & trim on-demand for sharing with your dinner hosts, teachers and other friends during the upcoming holiday seasons. Make extra for your own library or remove the Ex Libris text and you have a set of blank labels for other things!
If you’re giving these as a gift, you can use wrapping as fun, unique and creative as the present. Here are some awesome options for custom gift packaging.
Here’s another image with several of the other animals included for your craft and design projects!
As always, all are welcome to use free images from my blog for personal or commercial crafts. I only ask that you not resell the images themselves.
Wow! These look great! I love it! You’ve inspired me to start collecting old books. The artwork can be used for so many cool things!
You are amazing! Thanks for sharing!
Great images!!
It says something like “high German lutherian ABC and name- booklet for children who are starting to learn” on the inside; the back sort of translates to “Cockadoodledoo! the cock shouts loudly to wake up children nice and early to start school, because early hours are golden”
Sorry, it does make sense in German, honestly!
Geez, I love old books!
Oh thank you Steff!! I was so hopeful someone could read the German for me!! Thank you.
I always enjoy your downloads and projects but I LOVE LOVE these. With some real bibliophiles in the family I know I will be making some sets of these as gifts!!
Thank you.
These are wonderful! I think they would be great for children’s games as well. Perhaps memory cards. Thanks for the inspiration and the graphics!
♥ Rebecca Jean
Midnight Maniac
Those are really great designs, and how sweet of you to share them with us!
Thank you! These are great. I’ve been knocking around some different ideas/methods for bookplates. I’ll start with these.
This collection is really beautiful… I can’t wait to put the images to use. Thank you for doing all the hard work for us!
Cathe, thank you so much. These are beautiful!
Thank you for allowing us to reap the benefits of your creative mind.
Annie
These are so beautiful, I love them!!!
fabulous!! They look stunning!!! Thanks!!
I am looking for gift I can make for Christmas and these are perfect! Thank you once again.
You are amazing Cath! You just come up with great fun projects all the time! Thank you for sharing these!
These are fabulous. Thank you for sharing them with us. These will be great for two boys I know who are just getting into reading books on their own. It will hopefully instill a little pride in them to label their books as their own.
Thanks for sharing – these are lovely and will make great gifts. My sister loves to put her full name in everything – she especially will love them
Love it Cathe!!!
I had to make some first thing this morning. I am sending a box to my Aunt Polly who loves to read. In fact she worked at the Darmouth College bookstore for years and has tons of books. I snapped some pictures of how I packaged them and wrote about it on my blog. Here is the link
http://wilson-six.blogspot.com/2010/10/bookplates.html
Thanks again for all your wonderful ideas!!
Jen
Yay! I love bookplates, so thank you so much! The fact that these are woodcuts makes me even more happy.
These are wonderfully awesome! Love the creativity!
I love these old prints. Thanks so much for sharing with us. Did I miss a second post with the waterslide decals? I put the bread, flour, sugar, tea decals on various things after changing the labels to black. They turned out so nice.
No, decal post no. 2 is coming soon! So glad you were able to modify and use the decal designs!!
I love them. I love old books and have a growing collection. I might just have to claim my ownership of them alongside the original inscriptiions. You have also inspired me for Christmas presents. Thank you
Thank you! This is one of my very favorite websites. I LOVE IT!
Thanks so much for posting the book labels. They will make wonderful small gifts. What a talented and generous person you are. Your blog always brings a smile to my face.
Cathe,
Linked from my son’s Dudecraft to your great book plates. I think they’ll make great images for the wings of one of my birds. I use old handwritten recipes and pages from falling apart books. Check them out at http://www.nancyovertondesign.com.
I’ll send you a picture of the result.
Thanks,
Nancy
DudeCraft’s mom reads my blog!! Woo hoo! Don’t even get me started on how cool you son Paul is…
Your artwork is over the top FABULOUS!! Thank you so much for sharing Nancy. I hope you’ll come back often.
Thank you, thank you! I had been making little calendars for my peeps for birthdays and Christmas, but just couldn’t face doing that again this year (a tough semester of teaching will do that to you). Thanks to you, I have just the gift now. I really appreciate your sharing with all of us blog readers.
I’m a fan!
I LOVE this lady! This is perfect timing as I have some old books I wanted to put plates in. Thank you so much for sharing and for being so creative and making us all think so much!
What great images. I already have plans to make several sets of bookplates for Christmas gifts! Thanks so much for sharing. I’m headed to your store to see if I can find the rooster, I love it.
What a lovely thing to share – thanks very much.
These are absolutely wonderful! I love everything you do, but these will become Christmas gifts for friends, thank you!!
xo
Kate
Those are so charming. Thank you so much, Cathe. They will be great during the holidays!
Suz
Wow thanks! You just solved my teacher gift problem. But uhm, I’ll need some too.
Thank you so much!!! I love these! I am a big fan of bookplates and this set is charming!
This has to be one of your coolest project ever. As a reader and lover of paper I think book plates are the best. I still have some of my grandparent’s books with original bookplates in them. I love seeing their name written in old ink. This is going to make a perfect Christmas present to everyone I know.
Way cool! Thank you so much.
Cathe,
Thank you for these! A perfect Christmas gift for a very dear friend! Sandy
Fantastic, thanks! I think these will become a gift for my niece who’s away at her first year in college.
Wow, how generous of you to share!!! I love these and will make some up for gifts this year. Thanks so very much!!!
Wow. WOW! What fantastic images, and how wonderful that you’re sharing them!
Would it be all right to use these in a multimedia work or collage? I can think of a couple projects they’d be perfect for!
I love these animal bookplates. Maybe I will try to make some Christmas ornaments with them. Thanks!
I love, love, love these–both the bookplates and just the animals themselves. I’m already spinning off ideas for their use. Thank you for these and for all the wonderful graphics and ideas you share so generously!
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Thank you so much Cathe, I work at an elementary school and like to give the staff a little something at the holidays, this will be perfect! Thank you so much!
Kim Jackson
Thank you! These will be fun to use for inchies!
I’ve recently taken a passion to printing and love the old wood block engravings. I can’t believe how amazing these look from the book – that’s such a good idea. I’m always trying to find the old books with engravings so i’m keeping my eye on ebay now! Thanks for the download.
Dear Cathe,
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful project. I just LOVE what you’ve done with the images and can’t wait to have a go for myself.
Doxie
)
These so wonderful!!! Love them- you are very creative.
Wondering if the “bookplates” text is a font and if it is, what font is it? Or, did you write it out in pen?
Thanks!
I always love your ideas! you are a true inspiration. Thanks for the animal wooduts
im so happy i found your blog. this book is so nice and unique! i send all my happiness for you and your family for this Christmas and thank you for sharing these pictures.
Thanks so much for sharing these beautiful bookplates. I love to add a bookplate to any book I give and I always have difficulty finding ones that aren’t “cute”. These are wonderful for adding to my collection. Thanks again.
This is awesome! I’ve been wanting to make gifts (inexpensively) for my Bible Study group. I was planning on hand embroidering some bookmarks, but have run out of time. I may try to get these done for them. Thank you, thank you!
Hi Cathe , Just found your book plates and wanted to print some out for a gift ( they are wonderful! ) but the link doesnt work . Thought I would let you know ….disappointing that I wont be able to use these but never the less I appreciate that you offered.
Heather
Hi Heather, Are you clicking on the image of the bookplate layout? It’s working for me. If it’s still not for you I will email them to you.
It’s not working for me either. I’m clicking on the image and then I get a message “file does not begin with PDF”…or something like that.
These are a PERFECT gift for my brother!! I will keep trying the link, could you email them to me though, in case I can’t get it to work?
Thank you so much, you do such beautiful and imaginative work.
Sorry you’re having trouble. It’s still working on my end. Here is the direct link URL to the images. If you’re still having trouble, I’ll email them to you.
http://justsomethingimade.com/wp-content/uploads/JSIM-AnimalBookplates1.pdf
I guess I should’ve just replied instead of doing a new comment…
The link doesn’t work for me either…
This is the message that I receive: File does not begin with ‘%PDF’.
So weird.
Thanks for helping.
I found your site thru a customers whom you made a logo for. I dont have a site presently but when I do YOU would be my go to artist. Awesome! website. Just wanted you to know you were appreciated. Thanks!
These are wonderful! Thank you for having them in PDF format! My granddaughter will be so excited to get these!
These images are just gorgeous! I love vintage images. There is just something really special about them. Maybe because I’m in my sixties – think it’s nostalgia, maybe? :0)
Thank you!
Hi Cathe, Just love these bookplates and am printing some out as presents. I have a problem that I don’t appear to be able to add a name digitally to the PDF as you suggest, am I doing something wrong?
Thanks for these beautiful bookplates. I can’t wait to use them. Thank you for being so very generous to provide these.
Susan
Thank you for shaaring such wonderful images!
These are wonderful!! Thank you so much!!
You are very creative. Love your ideas.
Thank you… your site is a treasure trove.
Just wondering how to use these if you don’t have photoshop to add text to the labels. I would also like to print the blank label twice without having to print the entire sheet twice. If you have any suggestions please let me know!
I absolutely love this blog…you are amazing with all the creative ideas!
Thank you!
Joi
Thank you for the bookplates.
kind regards
Juana Atkins ( New Zealand )
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Thank you! These are super! I made necklaces out of these woodcuts and have them for sale at the above link.
This is exactly what I have been searching for! Perfect for my upcoming “book” themed party. How do you digitally add text to the labels?
love these!! thankyou!